'Bull in a China Shop': At Mount Holyoke, a remarkable woman changed education

Michael Brosilow photo

Emjoy Gavino and Kelli Simpkins in "Bull in a China Shop" by About Face Theatre.

Emjoy Gavino and Kelli Simpkins in "Bull in a China Shop" by About Face Theatre. (Michael Brosilow photo)

Chris JonesChicago Tribune

In 1977, the Mount Holyoke College alumna Wendy Wasserstein wrote “Uncommon Women,” a sparkling, groundbreaking and deeply moving play about brilliant women at an elite college, all probing their changing identities and priorities in the early 1970s, during the so-called second wave of feminism. But how did Mount Holyoke get to attract all those uncommon women in the first place?

One answer to that question is contained in a more recent play by Bryna Turner, another appreciative Mount Holyoke alumna: the longtime Mount Holyoke President Mary Woolley.

From 1900 to 1937, Woolley dragged a resistant Mount Holyoke away from providing an education in how to be a helpful spouse toward a new identity as a women’s liberal arts school that could stand shoulder to shoulder with any competing college aimed at men. She was an uncompromising pioneer in women’s education with a prescient understanding of the crucial role of education in emancipation — insisting on intellectual excellence and raising the admission standards to the college. She also had a close relationship with Jeannette Marks, a professor who taught English and theater at the college, and who cared for Woolley later in her life. Woolley never public acknowledged a lesbian relationship; that was not unusual at the time. But in “Bull in a China Shop,” now at About Face Theatre, it is a constituent part of her revolutionary acts.

Turner’s play is an adoring portrait and, in a nod to the times, she certainly downplays Woolley’s rigorous enforcement of academic standards, and her embrace of many of the other facets of elite education, which came at a price for some Mount Holyoke students who found themselves locked out of the school. But if the real Woolley wanted to emulate (or better) the patriarchal schools more than change them, that does not make her any less of a revolutionary. She’s a fascinating subject for the play.

I suspect she had much fiercer opposition than you see in Turner’s short drama, which features only one student character, which is a strange, if low-cost, choice for a play about life in a college. That puts a lot of pressure on Pearl (the vibrant Aurora Adachi-Winter) to be a kind of all-purpose representative of youth, and, alas, she has no peer with whom to wrestle. Meanwhile, all of the forces of conservatism are embodied in a dean named Welsh (Mary Beth Fisher), who basically has to keep showing up to report someone else having trouble with what Woolley is doing. It gets a tad repetitive, and it lacks credibility. I understand the need for small-cast plays, but Turner’s vision here demands more amplification. Maybe for the movie.

What you really crave is Woolley interacting with students and colleagues, and the play fully embracing the complexity of this remarkable, progressive woman. When Turner really gets into Woolley’s intellectualism and feminist determination, and her determined but practical management of her lover, the play gains energy and, thanks to a very fine performance from Kelli Simpkins, so does director Keira Fromm’s production. But the style of the piece is tricky — it feels to me like Turner couldn’t quite decide whether she wanted to stay in the period, and have people talk accordingly, or embrace a kind of comedic anachronism. Fromm’s production struggles mightily with the latter, with some scenes overplayed and some stiff, but the difficulty of establishing a consistent tone starts with the script.

The best moments of this show are two honest monologues. One is when Simpkins gets to be alone on the stage, and you see her diving into the depths of her character and directly communicating, as did Woolley, which is when Simpkins is at her formidable best. The other is when you see Emjoy Gavino’s Marks teaching her unseen students — a core revolutionary act, here beautifully expressed. It really is all about trusting these great historic characters and, as far as possible, letting them speak and act for themselves.